


A Grasping Truth

by UnapologeticallyMeatwad



Category: Fire Emblem: Soen no Kiseki/Akatsuki no Megami | Fire Emblem Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn
Genre: F/F, Found Family, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Path of Radiance Retelling, Slice of Life, Slight Radiant Dawn Spoilers, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2020-09-01 20:25:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20264029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UnapologeticallyMeatwad/pseuds/UnapologeticallyMeatwad
Summary: "Hey Mia," Ike grunts.  "This is Ilyana. She's friends with Daniel, Jorge, Muston, and—"Mia snaps her fingers. "That's the name of those guys! The green haired brothers — ""What?" Ike raises an eyebrow. "No, the merchants. She got drafted by Daein but he's one of us now. She's uh — " he twists his head back to look at thisIlyana. "She seems sick and those tomes are kinda heavy for her, so stay by her side. I'm going to relieve Oscar at the entrance, okay?"Thatokayisn't really a question though; Ike zooms off before Mia can protest that maybe, just maybe, it's Ilyana who should assist Oscar while Mia shows off just how much of an asset she is to Ike and — no use stewing in it. Next time. Soldiers are already coming from around the corner to kill Mia and the newbie.(short stories inspired from my most recent run ofPath of Radiance)





	1. Hope and Despair

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of off-the-cuff. I'm replaying _Path of Radiance_ and way too many ideas are coming to me while I play for me to _not_ start another big ol' project. 
> 
> This story is going to skip through moments in the game in a pretty episodic way, though it will all come together at the end. 
> 
> To clarify early in, here are the supports for the characters that I am using:
> 
> _A-Supports_  
Ike & Titania  
Mia & Rhys  
Astrid & Makalov  
Rolf & Marcia  
Ilyana & Gatrie  
Mist & Jill
> 
> _B-Supports_  
Titania & Mist  
Rhys & Rolf  
Mia & Ilyana  
Ike & Reyson  
Astrid & Gatrie

This is crazy. Mia is crazy for being here.

The same night she is recruited by the Greil Mercenaries, their heroic commander _dies_. The next day, one of the knights and his friend, the archer, storm off the campgrounds. The blue haired boy who is always scowling becomes the new commander, and their camp is immediately swarmed by the Daein army during a heavy rainfall.

Madness. Utter madness… though it _is_ an opportunity. An opportunity to meet her greatest archfoe yet. It's for that reason that during their first battle, she keeps her eyes mostly trained on the red headed paladin, Titania. The way her silver ax cleaves through the enemy is inspiring; she makes it seem so easy.

Ha. Titania is sloppy sometimes though! True that she's funneling a miniature army of knights and archers into one passageway and she is technically taking on like ten different foes at once with her hand axes — but! — she misses...! every once in a while at least! That's something! Mia can use that to her advantage and —

"C'mon Mia! Hurry up!" Ike shouts, his blade locked with the lance of an armored knight who is far too close to their camp to their liking. Mia darts over to assist Ike in killing the swine, but his blade overcomes the lance and he runs the sharp of his sword through the armored chest of the man.

It's very loud, and red drips from the black, the man stooped over in agony.

Ugh. Show-off. Ike is a show-off.

Mia runs ahead and vaults off the top of the armored knight, rolling into the midst of combat beyond them; she needs her own foe, she's not picking off the drips Ike weakens. Ike shouts something over Mia's shoulder, something like, "_What are you doing? Fall back! Rhys can't heal you from there!_"

Tsch. Rhys. Who's Rhys? Is he the pale, sickly one? Noooooo thank you! Mia can handle herself.

Her sword clashes with a fellow myrmidon. He's a little stronger than her, but she's definitely faster. At least as long as he's wielding that ugly, steel thing. Way too heavy for someone with his kind of build. He swings again, missing dramatically, sword smacking against the brick wall. Mia smiles and sheathes her sword, pulling out the sickle from her belt and rushes ahead. She cuts at his chest and then at his neck, and it's over. Her first kill with the Greil Mercenaries. Took a little too long to get to that point, but it's okay. There will be many more.

A fighter wielding a poleax rushes at her, weapon lunging towards her stomach. She sidesteps it and rushes forward, slashing her sickle across his chest, drawing blood. But he merely gnarls his teeth and swings again. She ducks this time, left hand grabbing the metal rod to steady herself, and she pivots, slashing him again in the chest. He screams and pushes her off of him, swinging for the umpteenth time.

What the heck! He should be dead by now! Two swings of the sword! Two! How is that not enough?

This time, the fighter strikes her. Right in the leg. She stoops low and tries to swap the sickle out for the sword, but her fingers fumble and drop it to the ground. But it's okay, she's got a good enough grip on her iron sword, which she raises high with one arm. Maybe she should have used that since the beginning… she's just had better luck with that sickle of hers.

She darts ahead to strike the man down, but all of a sudden a fireball (of all things! a_ fireball!_) surges through the cascading rain, leaving behind a little pocket of steam, and nails her in the chest, knocking her back into the stone wall. The fighter closes the gap fast and rushes her, poleax stabbing into the stone. He's slow so it's not hard to dodge, but she is weak and finding it hard to breathe, her chest moving so fast she's afraid it might split in two.

She sees a flash of red and watches in awe as Ike swings his blade into the fire totin' mage, killing him with one stroke, limp body elegantly sliding off the length of his sword. Ike moves without even looking at the soldier, charging at a farther back mage with this beautiful transparent, pink cape.

So beautiful that Mia has to consciously remind herself that she's fighting to the death right now. She swings at the fighter desperately, leaving quite the mark on his bicep, and this time he _roars_.

(Ashera, how is this man still alive?! Or is she just that weak?)

Mia dodges another swing from the beast and then impales him in the chest, the last of her strength draining away with the fatal stab. They both fall to their knees, her thin arm struggling to pull free the blade from his chest. Like knights who were unworthy of Excalibur. She must look so foolish…

Overhead, Mia can see two bad omens: one a small thundercloud no bigger than a shield ominously gliding through the skies, surely to destroy her, and the other a soldier armed with a javelin chagring at her.

"Ike!" she screams, not sure who else to call to. Oh, how she wishes she introduced herself to the others… like green haired guy and his — um — brother, other green haired guy! Goodness. They might be helpful just about now.

The soldier snarls at her, kicking Mia in the chest and knocking her to the ground. He raises his javelin high, laughing as he prepares himself to vanquish her. Simultaneously, the thundercloud drifts over her face and that's just great — death by lightning _and_ a spear. Simultaneously. It will be archived forever in the history books. Wonderful.

Mia's head limply falls to the side, cheek pushing into mud, and past the corpse of the fighter she sees Ike offering a hand to the mage that's about to kill her with lightning magic and — "Ike! What are you doing?!" she shrieks.

The thundercloud rumbles and glides back an inch, now hovering over the head of the soldier. The beautiful mage in violet robes finishes her incantation — how small her lip movements are — and lightning surges from up above, striking the soldier in the helmet. He shrieks, dropping his javelin, armor blackening and vibrating from the volume of the blast. Mia blinks and cranes her neck to see the violet mage, preparing for a second spell to finish him off —

— not on Mia's watch —

— so Mia rises to her feet, scooping her sword from the mud, and swipes the man's head clean off his shoulders. It lands at her feet and she grins, waving over to Ike and the mage, proof that she, Mia the Great Myrmidon, can handle herself —

"Hey Mia," Ike grunts, roughly shoving a hand onto her shoulder, as if he hardly noticed a thing. "This is Ilyana. She's friends with Daniel, Jorge, Muston, and—"

Mia snaps her fingers. "That's the name of those guys! The green haired brothers — "

"What?" Ike raises an eyebrow. "No, the merchants. She's friends with the merchants, but got drafted by Daein. She's one of us now. She's uh — " he twists his head back to look at this _Ilyana_. "She seems sick and those tomes are kinda heavy for her, so stay by her side. I'm going to relieve Oscar at the entrance, okay?"

That _oka_y isn't really a question though; Ike zooms off before Mia can protest that maybe, just maybe, it's Ilyana who should assist Oscar while Mia shows off just how much of an asset she is to Ike and — no use stewing in it. Next time. Soldiers are already coming from around the corner to kill Mia and the newbie.

Mia rushes to Ilyana's side, right hand drifting to her satchel for a vulnerary, but Ilyana's frail hand take Mia's before it can grab the thing. Mia looks over to Ilyana, whose eyes, though gorgeous, are kinda faded.

"Hi, I'm Ilyana, I'm friends with Daniel, Jorge, Muston, and — " Ilyana speaks slowly, like she's reading off of some far away tome. " — Aimee. I got drafted by Daein, and — "

"I know!" Mia shoves Ilyana's hands away. "Switch to a lighter tome, we have work to do, Ilyan—"

"Hey Ilyana! I'm Rhys!" the ever chipper Rhys says with a cute little salute, waving his mending staff at Mia. "Glad you're part of the group."

"Oh, hello Rhys," Ilyana's eyes glide over to the ginger boy. "I'm Ilyana, I'm friends with Daniel, Jorge, Muston, and — "

Goodness gracious, this Ilyana is cute. Though she has more in common with Rhys — the two are both sick like the plague. Mia doesn't really stand a chance, but she does make an attempt:

Mia stabs the incoming soldier through the eye holes with her sickle, blood splashing onto her orange tunic while Rhys nearly turns away to vomit. "Hey Ilyana, my name's Mia by the way! Let's be friends!"

* * *

They fail to defeat the enemy, but fortunately two of the Laguz warriors come in during their last breaths to save the day. Mia spends some of her time that night apologizing profusely to Commander Ike for failing in her duty to kill at least twenty of the Daein army, and he sort of blows a gasket and shouts at her.

Ike immediately apologizes at least, running a hand through his blue hair, murmuring something about how he hasn't been himself lately, leaving her with a gentle reminder that she doesn't need to kill twenty men like Titania does and that even he struggles on the battlefield at times.

Mia's positive that this stems from Ike losing his father so violently. Everyone at the camp seems to be feeling it. The Green Haired Clan sit in silence, red-headed Titania goes to the forest to weep, the ginger boy reads from tomes in silence, the raven haired one looks at maps far more than necessary and yells at anything that moves, Ike's little sister sews up their torn clothing, and Ike slowly moves through the camp making stilted small talk with the others.

They are all grieving. She doesn't know these people, but it's obvious that it's not always like this. Mia feels guilty. If she had a choice, she'd sit at a table with the Green Haired Clan and brood as well. But that would probably make them mad. Because her hair is purple, yeah, that makes sense.

She does feel sadness over Commander Greil though. The moment he ushered her over to help Ike and his team, she already kinda saw him as a father figure. She planned on keeping that relationship, since she really did need an actual dad… that is of course, if Greil rejected her offer to be her arch-foe. If he had said yes, she would have cried though and then they'd be back to the father-daughter dynamic.

Dammit. She needs to be stronger. Can't cry in front of every father-to-be.

So Mia feels lonely. It's only been two days of this doom and gloom, and she's sure it'll pass, but it's not very fun to stick around.

"Um… excuse me… please let me pass…"

Mia turns her head to see the beautiful mage in violent, Ilyana. She hops off her crate and gets even more in the girl's way. "So… um… hi, Ilyana. Hey, I was thinking, would you want to duel me? At dawn perhaps?"

Ilyana tilts her head to the side. "Um…"

Mia sighs. "That's okay. It wouldn't be much of a challenge, would it? You look really sick and I'm in tiptop shape, you know. So, um, where are you going?"

"Aimee…" Ilyana sighs. There are three other names, _Daniel, Jorge, and Muston, _but the girl doesn't seem to have the strength to utter them. "Sorry, I'm just really hungry. I don't want to talk right now."

Mia nods. "Can I go with you? Is that okay?"

Ilyana doesn't say anything. Just kinda stands there.

Super awkward, awkward enough that Mia feels the need to add on some sort of justification. She should probably say something like, _I need to survey the challenge everyone in this company presents!_ but she's too tired and kind of sad for that kind of bravado.

So Mia just says, "I need friends."

"Hm, okay," Ilyana nods and takes Mia by the hand. So handsy this girl! Their hips bump together and Mia feels warm inside. Ilyana's thin lips part to reveal a toothy grin. "You can be our friend."


	2. Blood Runs Red

The feathered edges to the wooden shaft brush across Rolf's trembling fingers as the shaft slips from the string, the arrow flying across the battlefield.

For once, Rolf makes his target. The steel tip embeds itself into the forehead of General Mackoya. General Mackoya whose horse had stampeded to the very feet of Ilyana. General Mackoya whose blade was raised high, pupils vibrated from the sheer anticipatory bloodlust leading up to his kill. General Mackoya who slumps over the neck of his horse and collapses on the ground in a heap. General Mackoya who no one takes a moment to grieve for. Except Rolf.

Rolf didn't mean to kill him. He doesn't _do_ that.

Mackoya's knights don't flinch, becoming more ambitious in their strikes at the mercenaries. One of the cavaliers grazes Rolf with their blade in the midst of his existential spiral. But Marcia and Mia slip in, warding off the Daein knight, quickly falling them. He tumbles to the ground, hand splaying open wide for the last time before he coughs up blood and dies. Rolf's veins stop pumping blood and his face gets very pale.

Ike looks back at Rolf with those cold, steely eyes of his, and waves for Rolf to follow along. _There's no time_, he screams. _Later, Rolf, come on!_

They make it onto the boat and shove off quickly, beginning their two month long journey to Begnion. Two months. Long time to sit on this, this — _senseless _killing… two months of uninterrupted solitude, no fighting to ward it off. Rolf almost wants to jump off the boat as it leaves the port because there still some soldiers left. Fighting will distract him. But Ike catches him by the hood and drags him back.

Ike doesn't talk to him about _it_ though. He's too busy with the nitty gritty of running their whole army.

Rolf has fought with the Greil Mercenaries for three battles now, but not before General Mackoya has he successfully killing anyone. He mostly peppered the enemy soldiers with his arrows, softening them up for the likes of Marcia and Mia, who are struggling like Rolf and need that extra push so that they can kill Daein soldiers like Ike and Titania do.

"Mist, I'm scared," Rolf says in a soft voice a week into the voyage. His knee is drawn to his chin, body withdrawn to be small as possible so that he can fit on top of the crate at the bow of the boat.

Mist looks up from her sewing; she's been spending a lot of time repairing damages to Ike's clothing when he's not around to fuss over her extra attention to him. "I am too. We all are, Rolf. It's okay to be — "

"I'm not scared of the Daein Army, Mist," Rolf accidentally snaps. She shrinks a little at how harsh his voice becomes, and that too, scares him. "I'm scared of _me_. I — I killed someone."

Mist's eyes widen; Mist is a good friend and keeps an eye on Rolf, but during that particular battle, Mist was with Titania and Mordecai as they dealt with the local Vigilante forces. Rhys was Rolf's back-up healer, and now it seems that Mist is regretting going with Titania. She can be so protective sometimes… who cares that she didn't see it happen? It's not like it would change anything, but Rolf can already see that look in Mist's eyes, that she feels guilty and it makes Rolf mad.

"Which one?" Mist asks, hands gently lowering Ike's ripped tunic across her lap. "Was it a mage?"

"What does it matter?" Rolf asks and then immediately feels sorrow. He hasn't even considered the life of the man he murdered, he's written this brooding narrative all around his own feelings. So selfish of him. General Mackoya was — somebody. Right?

Rolf bows his head, knees falling over the lip of the crate, yet buckling in. His boots don't reach the wet floorboards. "It was the General. He was going to kill Ilyana and I kinda just did it. I fired an arrow from the backlines and I guess it was enough."

Now it feels stupid to say. Everyone in their army kills people. Except Mist and Rhys. But everyone knows that the two clerics continue to train with the rest of the army, their day will inevitably come. And it's coming soon.

The night before, Rolf walked into his room to bunk with Rhys, and caught the pale boy pouring over a Light Magic tome. Rolf almost mentioned to Rhys that he might as well study it with Mist, but then he remembered that Mia has been giving Mist private lessons on the ways of the sword.

(Really, Ike is the best candidate to teach her, but he would flip out if he found out what Mist was doing. He already hates that she's on the field as often as she is. Because Mist is so pure hearted, it's sad to watch her get corrupted.)

Mist's mouth hangs open for a moment. "Shinon would be really proud of you."

Rolf feels this ugly pounding in his head. It's very irritating. "Shinon? What, you mean that mercenary jerk? I hate him! Who cares what he thinks?"

Mist frowns. "I think Shinon's a jerk too, Rolf, but I also think it's okay for people to walk away from war they don't want to be a part of. Shinon and Gatrie had the right to leave."

"Tsch," Rolf shakes his head. He hasn't spoken a word of his feelings towards Shinon to anyone else — mostly out of fear of disapproval. Though Boyd has definitely been very vocal about those _backstabbing, cowardly, womanizing fiends!_

(Though Boyd only noted that they were _womanizers_ because Mist was watching and he wanted to impress her.)

…

(Mist was not impressed, to be clear. Mist definitely doesn't like boys. Like at all. She hasn't said anything, but Rolf thinks it's kinda obvious. But it's not his place to tell Boyd, and besides, it's kinda fun watching his cocky jerk brother fail spectacularly at this little thing called _reading the room._)

"Shinon and Gatrie don't care about Crimea, or anything really," Rolf pouts. "I bet Shinon is working for the Daein Army now — they pay pretty good I heard and you know that's all that matters to him. A-and Gatrie is probably working for some wealthy girl that he thinks is in love with him. I know those two too well and — " He freezes, seeing a very hurt expression on Mist's face. " — what?"

"You're being really mean, Rolf," Mist lifts up Ike's tunic as if about to set back to work on it, but it's just a performative gesture. She's still frozen in place. "Shinon would be proud of your attitude, too."

"You're impossible!" Rolf shouts, jumping off the crate and scooping up his bow. "You're just — you don't get it! Because while you're healing our wounds and everything, w-we have to kill people! And it's not fun! I don't want to kill someone ever again!"

"Rolf, I — " Mist pauses and then leans back, bangs falling past her eyes. It's then that Rolf remembers how Greil died, and how she's probably focused on healing so that no one else has to go out like that. And he gets this understanding of her, like he just solved a puzzle. But his lips won't move; his heart pounds too fast for that. He stands his ground instead. Furrows his brow. Eventually, she gets off of her crate and walks off.

They don't speak again for the rest of the voyage.

* * *

Marcia is in a sour mood today. All she wanted to do was take her pegasus out for a ride, but that mean Titania hag scolded her for drawing attention to their vessel. As did that raven haired mage! Ugh, the nerve of that guy. He's probably just mad that he accidentally set his face into a permanent scowl from some mismanaged spell. What's worse is that Titania and Soren actually _smiled_ at each other after simultaneously yelling at her.

Like, great. You guys are at each other's throats all the time, and of course the one time you connect al hunkydory is when you go off on poor Marcia, who is just trying to make ends meet so she can save her idiot brother from scary debt collectors.

No amount of gold is worth this. No one told her that they'd be sailing for so long, they just assumed she'd be fine with it, but no! A boat is one of the worst places to keep a pegasus. They need to fly and stretch their wings every once in a while. Keeping them in a dark room that smells like butt is not fun at all. All she's asking of at least fifteen minutes of playtime but nope. Farina has to stay crammed away, for fear of someone spotting a Begnion pegasus at sea and sailing ahead to loot the boat.

_As if_ by the way. No way any dunderhead pirates will get the upper-hand on her.

Marcia tries to spend time with Farina so at least they don't lose the trust they've shared for so long, but Marcia can only look into those doleful, black eyes for so long before she needs to take a walk.

She is pacing across the dock, nose wrinkling at the salty smell of sea water, when a high-pitched scream interrupts her inner-monologue. "Watch out!" the boy she can't see shrieks. Marcia turns and ducks fast, an arrow whizzing over her head and flying into the kneecap of a dummy strung up along the mast. Marcia raises an eyebrow at the thing; it looks like a victim of severe acupuncture addiction, though none of the arrows are in places they should go. Namely the head. Or chest.

Marica turns and sees the little boy with lime green hair and scratches her head. "It's… Rolf, right?"

"Yeah, I'm Rolf. Hi Marcia," Rolf whimpers, lowering his bow to his waist. "Um, now's not really a good time to talk, I'm training."

"I can see that," she says calmly, strutting over to him, hands shoved into her waist. Poor thing. He seems so lonely. How come his brothers aren't out here with him? Then again, the same could be asked of her brother. Maybe that's something for them to connect over.

Eh. She'd rather poke fun. He did almost just smack her with an arrow.

"For someone who's fired a lot of arrows, kiddo, you have yet to kill this guy. What's that about?"

"Huh?" Rolf grunts, already drawing his next arrow. "I'm practicing at _not_ killing people." He releases his hold and nails the sandbag in the bicep. "Killing is wrong."

Marcia whistles, running a hand through her short pink locks. _Killing is wrong?_ Hoo wee. This is really not something she can figure out for him. See, this is the kind of stuff Soren should be doing! Yelling at people for being weird about kill people! Like… you gotta kill people! It's war, and if you don't kill them, they kill you! It's pretty explicit.

But Marcia can't call Soren over because they're on weird terms now.

"Yeah," Marcia grunts in return, because she's a big dunderhead. Just like her brother. No idea about how to talk to someone! She saunters over and sits beside Rolf while he prepares his next bolt.

Rolf tries to look tough in her presence, but he keeps peeking over his shoulder at her, blushing each time he notices her. Which gives Marcia enough time to notice that his fingers are bleeding! Barnacles!

"Barnacles!" she shouts (_Barnacles!_ is really the only thing that comes to her mind at the sight of bloody, callus ridden fingees.) Marcia slides off the crate and pulls back Rolf's bow, stretching out one of his palms. "Rolf, you're covered in blisters. How long have you been out here?"

Rolf shrugs, trying to act all aloof. "I dunno. My hands went numb a while back so I — _ow_!" He rubs his forehead. "Hey, what was that for?"

Marcia shakes her head, two of her fingers stinging from the _Thwap!_ to Rolf's head. She probably hit him a little too hard. Makalov kinda has a thick skull, so it usually takes a sledgehammer to get through to him. But Rolf's still a wee one, and from the sounds of it, has a soft head.

"Bad!" Marcia snaps, talking to Rolf like she does to Farina when she poops in the wrong place. "You're going to wait here, young man, while I go fetch Mist to — "

"No!" Rolf almost screams, more emotion in that one word than anything else she's seen from him that conversation. "Not Mist, she can't — um — do Rhys!"

"Oh, uh, Rhys, right," Marica squints at the blue sky, trying to remember what this _Rhys_ looks like. "He's uh — the sick guy, right? Oh, no, I don't know where he is. Haven't you heard Mia looking for him all morning?"

"What?" Rolf scratches his head.

"Yeah, something about how they were supposed to duel at dawn and he bailed or something," Marcia sucks on her teeth for a second. "Okay, fine. I guess I'll help you, seeing how apparently I'm the only one allowed to. But heed this warning, Rolfy, if I help you, it's going to suck, I'll tell you that right now."

"No," Rolf whines as his body is hoisted up onto a crate. "I don't wanna."

"Yeah, yeah," Marcia groans as she passes her hands over Rolf's. She remembers that not too long ago, back when she actually used to care about things, she would work so hard that her hands would get like this too. Now she's a bit more — uh — _efficient_ — with her energy, considering how she's always working for two (*coughMakalovsuckscough.*)

A few minutes into the bandaging process, folks start shouting from the other end of the boat. With the flapping of wings, she panics and grabs her spear because it's probably those blasted crows Soren was warning everyone about the other night, but nope. Just her renegade pegasus making a hubbub at the read end of the boat. She flies overhead and drops down to their level.

"Oh, Farina," Marcia drawls, hand meeting the pegasus' head as it almost tramples into them. At her touch, Farina's wings go slack and flop over, effectively blocking out the sun for them. "Aw, thank you!"

Farina nuzzles its mouth against Rolf's cheek, licking him after getting comfortable.

"Oh, st-stop it," Rolf giggles.

"Farina likes you," Marcia chuckles.

"How come?"

"Well if you can remember, back in that dusty fort, I got a little overzealous and took on all those mages, right?"

Rolf nods, and them immediately goes scarlet.

Marcia raises a wiry eyebrow but continues nevertheless. "I almost got my keister cooked, but you distracted them by taking on the heat instead — " Rolf gulps back a sob, and that's like, super weird, so Marcia wraps up her story kinda half-heartedly. " — it was really noble of you. Thank you. From me and Farin—"

"I didn't see the mages!" Rolf bleats. "I — it was a mistake. I was just walking around when all of a sudden a bunch of mages ganged up on me, I didn't even know you were there… shoot. It was nothing heroic, sorry. And then that mean thief guy, Volke, he had to save me from the mages. _And _he charged me 50 gold for it!"

"Ooh," Marcia purses her lips. "Barnacles for you then. Um. Never meet your heroes? And it's okay, Farina doesn't care. She has no idea what you're saying after all."

Farina licks Rolf again, further cementing that point.

"You're a good guy, Rolf," Marcia smiles. "You just need to not be so hard on yourself."

Finally, Rolf smiles.


	3. Training

"How does this one look?" Mist asks, stretching a sleeveless, high-collared scarlet tunic across her chest, biting her lip at a visibly apprehensive Titania.

"I think if you grow your hair out, it'll darken enough that it won't clash with this," Titania nods, steely eyes immediately scanning for a dress to better fit her friend. Though it's not quite as simple as finding the appropriate dress; there are plenty of those. The issue is that this is _Begnion_ and everyone dresses like royalty here. Even the street vendors. Mist and Titania are just members of a ragtag mercenary group, poor enough to be scoffed at in the halls of the Apostle, so this isn't the best place to shop. But aboard the ship, Titania promised Mist that they would do this immediately upon landing.

"Shoot," Mist mumbles, neatly folding the tunic back up. This was definitely supposed to be fun, but it's instead been very gruelling. Maybe if they did this earlier, like in Crimea, it wouldn't be so discouraging.

"You seem sad," Titania observes with her vacant, steely eyes. "Still upset over Rolf?"

Some pink crawls into Mist's cheeks. "You know about that?!"

Titania nods and brushes some hair from her forehead. "Boyd told everyone. Even Ike."

"Oh no, Ike knows? He's probably really mad at me now for being so dismissive of Rolf and — "

"Ike doesn't really have opinions on these things," Titania motions for Mist to follow her to the next stall while she rummages through her satchel to recount her gold. "It's just gossip. I wouldn't sweat it."

"It's not just gossip," Mist shakes her head. "Gossip would be like — how Gatrie totally has the hots for Astrid… and Ilyana… and Marcia… and — "

" — yes, Gatrie is an affront to all woman," Titania says curtly. "People have fights all the time. Like me and Soren, but we get through it and fight together because our work has a lot of meaning to it. I wouldn't focus on Rolf, I'm sure he's already forgiven you as you have forgiven him."

Mist's eyes widen at these sage words, and the girl almost bows to Titania from being so humbled. "Is it that bad with you and Soren? I haven't seen him on the battlefield since Gallia."

Titania's lips press tighter together. "He's focusing more on running strategies for Ike — I think he's going stir crazy, and some of his strategies are just — um — _strategic_ — for the sake of it. It's fine though, we'll make up soon."

Mist nods, a bit more resolute than she was before. Titania is really smart and nice but she's wrong and Mist can already see herself twenty years from now telling other people that Rolf and her will make up _some time soon_… but never at a specific time. Because she will keep putting it off. Because unlike Titania, Mist is a coward.

"Why fancy meeting you two here," an undeniably suave voice coos from afar. The girls turn and see Gatrie, standing perfectly before the sun so that the light shoots beams into his golden locks. His fingers dance through his admittedly brilliant hair and he smirks. "Why I was just strolling through the market —"

Titania crosses her arms. "You paid Volke on the intel to follow us."

"What?" Gatrie sputters. "No, no, Titania, the Great Gatrie would never…" He pauses and sizes up Titania's unflinching face, finally sighing and giving into a mean slouch. "... fine, _but_! I paid him with noble intent for I — "

"Why are you wearing you armor, Gatrie?" Mist rests her hands on her hips, which is where they usually go when she's face to face with Gatrie.

Gatrie mirrors Mist's pose, jaw clamped tight. After some time thinking, he sagely points up at the key. "You get more flies with honey than with vinegar, so sayeth the good book."

"What does that even _mean_?" Mist giggles.

"Tsch," Titania chuckles as if looking down at a toddler. "You want to pick up women here? I thought you were into farm girls like Nephenee…"

Face absolutely scarlet now, Gatrie slowly clanks forward. "Hey! Me and Nephenee? Not a thing, okay. Ancient history really, not that I — uh — tried — asking her — out… I'm not — I don't want to talk about this. Anyways, it's not weird to wear armor all the time. I haven't heard you complain about Jill yet, Mist."

Mist blinks. It's true. Jill does wear that crimson armor of her at all times, hands nervously clutching her spear, always on duty, eyes darting this way and that. It makes Mist sad. Jill shouldn't feel bad about formerly being part of Daein, she's doing the right thing working with them.

"Oh, I don't wear armor all the time, Gatrie," a low voice giggles from behind Gatrie's blue girth. He pivots on his heel to reveal Jill, dressed in just common brown robes. Robes that are a little too big for her, robes that look so — comfortable. It makes Mist's heart thump.

Gatrie bites his lip to keep it from squiggling. "_Et tu, Jill Fizzart?_" Before she can speak, Gatrie jabs another finger at the sky and puffs out his chest. "That my friend is a little reference to _The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, _penned by one William Shakespeare."

"Ugh, you are so pretentious, Gatrie," Jill wags a finger at him, holding out a pastel yellow tunic, making firm eye contact with Mist (whose heart again goes _thump!_) but Gatrie gets in the way.

"You uncultured swines! You don't read William Shakespeare? Why, he is but a God of the romance world. _But soft what light, through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and Juliet is the _— "

"No more of this, Gatrie," Jill sighs, knuckle rapping him on the shoulder plate. "I want to hang out with Mist and… um… Commander Titania."

Titania raises an eyebrow. "Jill, you don't have to be so formal with me. We aren't on the battlefield."

Jill nods, hand drawing up for a salute, but she drops it fast. "Woops."

Behind her, Gatrie is stewing in rage. He steps forward, shaking the Earth itself with his rage. "Hey! No more of this! I paid Volke a hefty sum to talk to you lot and I expect you to hear my plea!"

Mist finally breaks her staring at Jill to roll her eyes at Gatrie. "Gatrie, Ilyana is not into you. She's into Mia! She likes girls!"

"Aha! That is where you are wrong, fair maiden," Gatrie wags a finger. "For you see, yes, those two surely have the hots for one another, but who could resist me? Why, look at how lucious my hair is today. It's undeniably attractive."

Mist shakes her head. "I miss Shinon. He kept you in check, Gatrie. Anyways, Ilyana likes women, not big, brusque guys like you and — "

Jill raises a finger into the air, accidentally crossing it against Mist's pinky finger. Both girls withdraw their hands fast, Jill nearly slapping her sides to complete the soldier's posture. "Ilyana likes girls, Mist, but she definitely likes boys too."

"Huh?" Mist scratches her head.

"Wait," Gatrie raises a finger to the air. "I have a question about that. Uh — " he freezes when all three sets of eyes fall on him. " — I just want to clarify. You can like women _and_ men?"

"Yeah," Jill shrugs. "I do."

"Hoo wee," Gatrie's shoulders fall back. "This makes life a lot easier for me. Have you guys even _looked_ at Zihark, yet? Like wow. Um — anyways! Back to business!"

Titania shakes her head. "No, no more of this. Your business is complete. We talked about Ilyana, she's your current crush, we said it's not happening. Move on."

"Aha, Titania, you are foolish then," Gatrie leans in to boop her on the nose. "For I, unsure of my odds with Ilyana, formulated a secondary strategy. A target B if you would. She will remain anonymous for purposes of — "

"It's Astrid," Mist crosses her arms defiantly.

Gatrie doesn't say anything, but his hair does slump clean over his face. " — it is a woman that I promised to teach in the ways of battle and Titania — you know me, I just stand around and sponge hits. I don't really know what to say, and was hoping you could give me some advice."

Titania folds a hand to her chin, and looks down to Mist. "It's Astrid?" Mist nods. "Okay, so first off, I would advise she fire off arrows behind your back while you protect her. Pretty obvious, but it's good if she really doesn't know what to do, though I think she's been fine personally. However — "

"Thank you so much, Titania!" Gatrie pumps a fist in the air. "Say no more, I must make haste and teach this woman how to _fight!_" He turns to run off, but quickly looks back. "And it's not Astrid! It's um — some bow wielder that you guys don't know. Um. Brunhilda."

"Gatrie, there's only like twenty people in our army," Mist shakes her head.

"Uh. Right. Very well," Gatrie sighs and runs off.

There's a bit of an awkward silence now, mostly on the part of Jill. Jill stuffs the tunic away and looks up at Titania. "Commander, what were you going to tell Gatrie when you said _However_?"

"Oh, just that he's slower than molasses and Astrid is decidedly _not_, so the strategy doesn't really work… say, Jill, what brings you over here?" Titania raises an eyebrow; she hates to be prejudiced about this, but Jill has yet to prove her worth to the army. Or — she really is very good at fighting — it's just that… something's off about her. And Titania doesn't understand why Ike is okay having her along.

The girl is dangerous. Maybe Ike is too distracted to really process that.

"Oh, um," Jill scratches her nose. "Volke told me — for free by the way, I didn't pay him off — um — that you two were shopping for Mist and I — uh — I thought this would look really good on her…"

Mist's face lights up as Jill hands the tunic over. "Aw, thank you so much Jill, that's so sweet of you… thanks for eating dinner with us last night by the way, it was really nice seeing you."

Jill and Mist keep talking, and Titania sort of falls back to the sidelines as they get closer and closer. Though it's not Jill who Titania can't keep her eyes off of now, it's Mist. She sees first-hand how bright those eyes get at just the idea of Jill and all of a sudden, things start to make sense.

From that day forward, Titania puts her trust in Jill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to be clear.
> 
> Most of the stuff with Gatrie I wrote while walking down Hollywood Blvd in LA on the way to a volunteer event. Ha ha. Anyways, hope you enjoyed!
> 
> Also I know that Fire Emblem takes place way before William Shakespeare is even born, but I thought it'd be funny if Gatrie referenced him anyways.


	4. The Atonement

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates might be scarce from me for a while. I just got a job offer that's asking me to move across the country in about a week, and the idea of moving with my cats on no money is making me sick. But it's a dream job, and I have to do it. So I'll try my best to be here. If I'm updating, that probably means I'm handling things ok and staying positive.

A fortune teller tells Mia one day that her archfoe will be a man in billowing white robes. Hence why Mia so quickly laid crosshairs on Rhys, because of the whole priestly, white robes thing. But it turned out the guy is a total wimp! Total backlines boy. _Occasionally_ he'll use his staff to put someone to sleep, or to seal away some mage's magic, but that's about it.

It's a huge letdown and it really makes Mia regret trusting that old crone at the street corner. She hasn't met a single white robed man during this all quest to save Crimea who could possibly be her nemesis. Because every white robed person? They are all healin' boys, apparently that's part of the contract. It's so frustrating. Mia just wants an arch foe for crying out loud, it shouldn't be that hard.

Well.

She finds him. Erm, finds him _eventually_ at least. It's when they are in Oliver's Mansion in Begnion. Turns out the dastard had kidnapped a Serenes Royal as one of his slaves. Highly disturbing, but Oliver's a weird guy, wouldn't put it past him. Of course, Oliver runs, letting loose his armada on the Mercenaries. Which is no problem really. His armada sucks.

Aside for Rhys, everyone is up to speed now. Even Mist.

(And Mist wields her swords so well! Her wrist is a little limp, so Mia might have to help her find one of those magically imbued swords, but Mist can at least go toe to toe with mages pretty easily.)

Mia is fighting alone — as if there's any other way to go to war — when she spots outrageous beams of light that cleave through the musty air. Mia has never seen anything like it, but it sure seems dangerous. So she finishes off the armored knight she's up against, and hoists herself up onto one of the walls and peers across the precipice.

The light beams comes from a man in billowing white robes and — wait — what?! It's her nemesis! It must be!

Mia doesn't think twice and swings her legs over the wall and drops onto the red carpet. She closes the gap between herself and the bishop fast and swings her sword at his neck. He turns around just in time, his metal staff clanging against her blade. She grits her teeth and reels back her sword to try again, but pale yellow light blisters from his staff and Mia is forced to smack the broad side of her blade against the raw power.

It sizzles and spits little blips of light that drift towards the ground like snowflakes. Mia growls and swings at the bishop's head again and he dodges it, so she swings again and again and again. He stumbles backwards, avoiding each slice by a _hair_. His voice keeps sounding off to shout something at her, but his gulps that precedes each dodge makes him sound more like a frog than anything.

Amazing. It really _is_ her archfoe. Perhaps she should let him live so that they can exchange quips and reschedule for a later date to have their Duel to the Death. Preferably at dawn. Right now, she just needs the man to know that she is serious about their archrivalry.

So her hand grabs his staff and lifts it high over his head, her other hand sheathing the blade and then grabbing a handful of those predestined white robes. She shoves the bishop against the wall and brings her face in close when suddenly her heart stops —

— because of the man's pale skin, and the dark ringlets under his eyes —

— and his thinning red hair —

— and weak smile —

"Hello Mia," Rhys sighs. "Would you mind letting go of me?"

* * *

It is exciting to wage war inside the fortress of a rich man. Volke couldn't care less about the tight corridors restricting their moment, he focuses more keenly on the locked doors and treasure. Finally, an opportunity to make himself useful. He picks the first lock quickly, eagerly anticipating a hefty haul.

But he gasps the moment the door swings open because inside is a swordmaster flanked by two myrmidons. Doing nothing more than waiting for him — because it was a trap.

"Blast it all... _Gatrie!_" Volke falls into a bow legged position and shuffles back quickly. "Get 'em boy!"

"_Hmph!_ Well, I never," Gatrie sneers as Volke rolls back between his legs, his massive girth immediately filling the doorway. Gatrie looks up at the sword wielders, fingers curling around the shaft to his spear. "I'm no dog you cads. Don't be fooled, for I am _Gatrie the Great_!"

Gatrie pumps his lance into the air, but the myrmidons don't read to Volke as impressed. They dart in and immediately begin hacking away, but their swords are weak and pitiful, merely bouncing off Gatrie's shiny blue armor. Gatrie laughs a hearty chuckle, the rattling of his armor still louder than his most boisterous guffaw. Even when the Swordmaster comes in, the blows just bounce off him like rubber.

Gatrie would just _love_ to see Mia put on a defense like this! Because, uh, _she can't_! So there. Oh, if only Ilyana was here to see how tough her future mate is…

"Gatrie! Gatrie!" Volke growls, snapping his fingers. "C'mon. We don't have all day."

"Oh. Right," Gatrie sighs, finally dropping his spear to his chest and lunging. And he lunges. And lunges. And lunges. And lunges. And wow, why is he missing so much? Surely, his spear is broken. No one can outrun _Gatrie the Great!_

Volke almost screams as he watches Gatrie flounder. He counts at least twenty jabs before all three myrmidons are swiftly put to rest. Clicking his tongue, Volke steps over the bodies and kicks open the chests. "Nice job, Gatrie. And it only took you — what? Six hours?"

"You're a mean bastard Volke," Gatrie throws both hands on his hips. "I just saved your life, thank you very — ooh! What did you find?!"

Volke looks up from the second chest and rolls his eyes. But then thinks better of it, and stuffs the Ashera Icon he looted into Gatrie's hands. "Might help with your _performance issues _— "

Gatrie screams like Aimee does when she's properly scandalized, which makes Volke's smirk so wide that it makes him look like a jack o'lantern.

" — you're fired by the way," Volke pats the blue kahuna on the shoulder, peeking his head out into the hall to whistle. The first mercenary to look back to Volke is Rolf.

Oh great, just what Volke needs. Another immature brat. Oh well, in this line of work, you take what you can get.

"What's up, Volke?" Rolf asks, slinging his bow over his back.

"Rolf, don't talk to that jerk," Marcia, mounted next to him, shakes her head.

Volke winces and grabs Rolf by the shoulders, looking him very directly in the eyes. "Rolf — you — are my number one — guy."

Rolf's mouth drops open like a broken puppet's. Stars twinkle in his eyes and he does a little skip in place, looking back to Marcia. "Marcia, did you hear that? I'm Volke's number one — "

Volke's leather palm smacks against Rolf's baby-fat laden cheek, his bare fingers clawing Rolf's face away from the pegasus knight. "C'mon. Let's go. Grab your Brave Bow."

"What are we doing?" Rolf asks, following Volke anyways.

"I open doors, you shoot the fiends that wait for me."

"Huh. Okay. Why my Brave Bow, though? I only save that for the true tough guys."

"Because — " Volke looks back. "You are killing these people right away. I'm — uh — not paid enough to actually _fight_ these people."

"Ah," Rolf says dryly.

By the time the newfound dynamic duo reaches the next door to loot, they find themselves too late. For Soren kneels before the door with a key in hand.

"What — are — you — doing?" Volke stomps over, fists curled at his sides. "Me and Rolf have a thing going and — "

"You charge too much," Soren _barely_ shrugs. "I'm just saving our company money. We still have some spare keys lying around and I don't see why we can't use them — "

"I despise you," Volke seethes. He rolls up his sleeves but Rolf snags him by the forearm.

"Volke, no. You don't want to make a scene with Soren."

_Yeah, maybe __**you **__don't make a scene with Soren but I _— Volke almost says, but he knows Rolf is right. You don't ever make a scene with Soren. Period. He nods and they rush off to the next door, but this time Volke has to fall back because this door is actually _guarded_. Meaning it must be very special.

It's a golden halberdier that stands in the way. He lazily turns to face Rolf and lifts his heavy spear into the sky, only to sigh and drop it. He falls to his knees and ends up rambling to Rolf. Something about how kids shouldn't fight in the war, and oh, woe! His heart is just breaking and ugh give it a rest.

Unbelievable. Volke considers stepping over the sobbing hulky halberdier to open the door, but he really does need Rolf at his back to do anything. These soldiers are too strong for him, though he will never admit that.

So he reaches inside his belt and plucks free a tissue, daintily handing it to this man called _Devdan_.

* * *

"Since when could you fight?" Mia leans in to Rhys' face deeply as she would if bobbing for apples.

"Uh, it's a new development," Rhys nervously caresses his staff. "Ike found out I was practicing and asked me to step up. I — I — uh — don't really like killing people so I'm taking it kinda easy."

Doesn't like killing people? Ugh. Well, Mia already knew that, but _still_.

She claps him on the back. "Taking it easy? Your magic is crazy! I've never seen anything like that Light spell you just did! I thought you were my arch foe."

"I caught that," Rhys strokes some of his sweaty locks from his brown eyes. "Ha, so uh, here we are. Heh."

"Yeah," Mia sighs. "This fight is kinda boring. I'm very underwhelmed. You are the only one worthy of crossing my sword today, but you're not even a true adversary. I don't get it, how come you can't just keep healing?"

"Well, things are getting kinda rough and, uh… the war is escalating?" Rhys slumps his shoulders. "Plus, um, I like being on the frontlines with y-you… uh, and! And with the others. They're cool too. I was chatting with Oscar and Boyd earlier, and they've mostly been preparing meals for us, but I don't know — I don't think I could do that."

Mia narrows her eyes, homing in on Rhys' pink nose that twitches like a rabbit's. "Yeah, I wouldn't want you preparing my food."

"Haha, that's very funny, Mia," Rhys laughs. It's odd, his laugh is so dry, almost sardonic like Volke's. But it's just how Rhys talks. He sounds weak but it doesn't mean he's not trying. For him to even move means he's giving it his all. "I've kinda been on the chopping block, and we keep recruiting new people and I really don't want to be replaced. I don't know if you've heard, but we just got a new one."

"Who? Tiger face and um — " Mia tries really hard to remember everyone's names. She really does. " — red head mage boy kid?"

"No, no," Rhys waves a hand at the air. "Devdan! He's new as of like five minutes ago. Rolf convinced him to leave Oliver's forces to help us."

"Devdan?" Mia scratches her head. "That's a dumb name, and I don't trust former bad guys — "

" — except Ilyana — " Rhys smirks.

" — um, yeah, except Ilyana," Mia frowns. "But yeah, I'm not feeling this Devdan sap— "

"Devdan fights like ten men!" a golden plated soldier suddenly cheers, raising his big honkin' arms high into the air. "Fear not, friends, Devdan will save you!"

The man brushes past the two of them and moves onto the throne room. Which is good because Mia was supposed to already be over there to rendez-vous with Ike and take on the head honcho. But now she's just chatting with Rhys… whoops.

Mia looks at Rhys again, notices how thin his lips are, how dark the rings are, how deep they make the caves around his eyes look. He trembles and nearly drops his staff, but it's not like he's any sicker than usual. His skin is actually a warmer tone than usual if anything. "Um, Rhys, are you okay? You don't look so good."

"Oh, I'm fine," Rhys says stiffly, finding something very interesting on the floor apparently. He sniffs and cracks his neck back up, eyes blurred with tears. "Mia, I'm scared, I-I-I'm no fighter, I'm — oh no…"

Mia's never been good with words, so she's thankful when Rhys drops into her thin arms. Hugs and stuff are easier for her. She rubs his back, and then his head. Doesn't seem to help though. Shoot.

_Crash! Boom! Pow!_

The commotion is from the direction Devdan ran off to. Before the cacophony can even dissipate, Rolf starts shouting. "No, Devdan! I told you not to go that way!"

Another man screams shortly after. It kinda sounds like Volke? But Volke's voice isn't so scratchy and high as this? Huh. Weird.

"_Rolf, you gnave! Get your keister back here!_!"

Hmph, poor Volke. Maybe he should have hired _her_ and not stupid Gatrie as his bodyguard. He will rue the day that he —

— right, Rhys is sad. Help Rhys. Not Mia. Mia comes later.

"Rhys, um, you're really good at healing, a-and healing is tougher than fighting, like even I can't heal people, so I bet you'll um…"

Rhys looks up at her, eyes pink, a line of snot dripping from his nose.

"...be really good at it?" Mia finishes.

Rhys just sobs and buries his face deeper into her shoulder.

Mia frowns. "Oh geez."

* * *

"Ike! Ha! There you are!"

Volke stops in front of Ike, doubling over into a fit of panting. Embarrassing to appear so weak before not just his commander, but Makalov, Astrid, and Titania who wait behind Ike patiently. But this is business, and they all know by now that Volke is one of the only people on the team that can give Ike a hard time. He coughs into his fist and holds out a small sack before the mercenary. "Good pickings today. I got a Bolting tome, a Physic staff for either your sister or Rhys, and a, uh, silver lance, I wouldn't give that to Gatrie though, he suck— "

"Volke, are you okay?" Ike furrows his brow, smacking away the sack. "You're freaking out."

"Am I?" Volke pants. "Ha, maybe I'll feel better after you pay me my 300 gold for today's services — "

"Uh, sure, yeah, later," Ike stutters. "I-I mean — we're _fighting_ right now, Volke. Weird timing."

"I know that but please," Volke stamps the floor several times over. "It's important, I am personally in a rush and — "

"_Hey!"_

The grotesque screech ensnares both Ike and Volke's attention.

Waiting at the end of the hall, where Volke stampeded in from, are a band of archers, mages, thieves, and soldiers. All of them with furrowed brows and gnarled fists.

"_That's the dastard that convinced Devdan to leave our army!_"

"_You'll pay for that you scoundrel!"_

"_Devdan is great! He fights like ten men, give him back!"_

"Erm," Volke scratches his head and snags Ike's limp hand, yanking it forward and rattling it up and down. "Our business is concluded — "

"What?" Ike raises an eyebrow, double taking between Volke and the enemy soldiers, likely not seeing the challenge that they impose.

(But they have swords and thunder spells! The kinda stuff that can turn Volke into swiss cheese!)

"No, Volke," Ike shakes his head. "You still have to tell me my father's secret — "

"Sorry, you snooze you lose, kid," Volke drawls and shoves Ike to the side, vaulting off the floor and landing on Makalov's steed. He smacks the guy on the back like he would a horse and points towards the exit. "Makalov! Go! Take me away from this place!"

"Huh?" Makalov gasps as if waking from a deep sleep. "Uh, how about no? That is unless of course, you _pay me_."

Oh, that bastard. He's doing the thing that Volke does to the others! How dare he?

Volke groans and sifts through his gold pouch. "How much?"

"Ten thousand."

Volke looks up and almost cries. "Ten thousand?! Is that — is that your debt?"

Makalov's face scrunches up in great pain.

Volke frowns. "What happened to you, champ?"

Before their conversation can continue, Ike yanks Volke off the horse by the scarf and whips him out like a shield. Volke's arms twitch inwards, mostly to protect his beautiful face, but when he peeks behind his fingers he sees that all the soldiers are already dead. "What?!"

Ike pushes Volke off him and flashes his bloody sword at the man. "I'm very good at fighting Volke. Honestly, even Rhys is starting to pull weight around here with the combat stuff and — "

* * *

It's called imposter syndrome. Mia has heard about this from some of the more seasoned mercenaries. Rhys is acting like he's not worth spit when in reality, he's worth a whole gob of spit! Heck, sometimes Mia feels jealous towards _him_!

But how is she supposed to say that? Ugh. Maybe if she hugs Rhys tighter, that'll help and — oh, no, that just makes him cough. Frail guy, huh…

It's then that Mia hears Ike's harsh voice drift through the mansion's walls.

" — _even Rhys is starting to pull weight around here with the combat stuff and — "_

"Rhys! Can you hear that?" Mia points at the ceiling.

Rhys looks up, with even pinker eyes now, and rubs his jaw.

" — _Mist too, honestly. But we're a small crew, and I don't think it's a good idea for any one person to need constant back-up. Unless they're slow like Gatrie. So I'm giving you an ultimatum. Be like Rhys and Mist and work really hard so you can help us fight, or stay on the sidelines."_

"_Hmph. I am actually quite adept at killing people," _Volke huffs.

"_Yeah? What's stopping you then?" _Mia can actually _hear_ Ike rolls his eyes. Wow. What sass.

"_Oh, you know, just 50,000 gold."_

"_...Ashera help me."_

"Wow," Rhys is the first to speak. Finally, he straightens his spine, hands leaving Mia to get a firmer grip on his staff. "I didn't know Ike actually saw me that way… I feel very humbled."

"See? You're worth a lot, Rhys," Mia flashes a toothy grin. "Everyone can see it. Even Ike."

"Well…" Rhys looks up sheepishly. "We — uh — best get to work. If Ike is over there, Devdan and Rolf are probably taking on that team of mages at the end and neither of them are good at that sort of thing. Or at least, I can assume Devdan isn't, with that attitude and all…"

"Yeah, we got this!" Mia pumps a fist in the air for her friend's sake. Quickly though, she feels something cold fluttering through her veins, wafting over her heart and sticking into her throat. It stops shifting, but there's this — erm — _presence_ — around her. Like a — like a — oh, it's Rhy's Ward staff. He's shielding her from magic. How sweet.

…

Too bad really.

"_Oops_!" Mia shrieks, flinging her sword over one of the tall walls. She claps both hands to her cheeks. "I guess I can't fight now. I guess you'll have to save the day for everyone Rhys."

"Oh Mia, why?" Rhys gets very pale. "I feel good, but not good enough to fight a mage who — "

Mia's eyes get wide. Shimmer even. Threaten to tear up.

Finally… Rhys yields. "Okay fine, I'll go… snuff out the bad guy mages or whatever… um. Mia?"

"Yeah Rhys?" Mia asks, protectively flinging a hand over his shoulder.

"You _are_ coming with me, though."

Mia drops her hands to her side. No way! Not after all that! Rhys has to like — be the baby bird coming out of the nest thing… she shakes her head. "No, Rhys, you must do this alo—"

"If Soren sees you sauntering around with a useless Ward spell on you, he's going to flip out and rail on me all night, and I just don't want to deal with it."

Oh. Fair.

Mia scratches her chin. "Well, I have no weapons to defend myself with — "

"You have two swords on you still. If not three."

Mia's face falls. Right. One for armored knights, one for mounted guys, and this really strong silver one she named after Ilyana's thunder magic, um… yeah.

"...okay fine, I got your back."


	5. Day Breaks

Astrid and Makalov lead the pack. Though their horses slow them down dramatically in the swamp, they cleave through Oliver’s forces quickly. What Astrid lacks in strength, she makes up with unrelenting speed. Titania blinks and within even that small timespan — another arrow of Astrid’s flies and strikes its target. For the bodies that don’t collapse into the muck, Makalov gallops up to them and strikes them down with hefty swings of his steel blade.

Makalov! The weird grubby gambler guy! A good soldier! Imagine that.

It almost makes Titania weep. While she’s invested nearly all of her energies in this army training their forces, Astrid and Makalov have eaten up most of her time. Both of them were sufficiently weak enough and behind the other mercenaries to give Titania pause, but Ike specifically requested that she train those two. So train them she did. 

When Astrid masters the bow and takes on the heft of an ax to expand her studies, Titania leans forward to help, but Astrid hardly notices. She charges forward without a care. Makalov eventually does the same, also choosing the ax, which of course is Titania’s preferred weapon. 

Both use axes — and both best her in combat.

They both race off. Always several strides ahead. When Titania catches sight of pegasus knights coming in from Makalov’s right-hand flank, Titania readies her hand ax. But as the handle arcs over her wrist, a slew of arrows casts a massive shadow over her glistening white armor, passes over, and pelts into the bodies of the pegasi which crumple into the muck. Meanwhile, while Astrid opens her left flank to a horde of fighters, Makalov’s horse cuts in front of Astrid’s, and he charges right into the crowd, sword spinning and cutting to the bob of his gallop.

Titania pulls on her horse’s reins and scans the area fast; there has to be somewhere for her to go. But then a searing pain to her back and she falls flat on her face, a green wind whipping her cape up and over her face. She brushes it off, rising to her feet, nearly tripping and falling back into the mud. But she steadies herself, just in time to see a myrmidon swipe at her horse, squaring the poor thing off. 

There’s five of them. They surround her fast. She leans back on her right foot and pulls out her ax. It’s just iron, not the best for combat. Mostly intended to weaken opponents for Astrid and Makalov to finish off. But as her fingers roll across the wooden handle, she accepts that this will have to do. 

Titania says nothing, lets them jump her. It’s hard to move in the muck, she just barely dodges a fighter as he lunges at her with his poleax. She sidesteps the lunge and brings her ax over his head, nailing him in the back. He makes a big splash when he lands. She turns from that swing into a slice from below, swiping up into the mage that downed her. He, too, keels over. 

But then two of the myrmidons get her from behind. They slash at the gaps in her armor, and she’s too slow to stop them. She falls back, blood spilling over the white armor. White armor she chose for the exact opposite of what has transpired; she swore that no one would ever draw blood from her. And now?

She sneers at the two myrmidons, backed by a common soldier, and tries to find a superior spot to battle from, but her back bumps into a fallen tree and she knows that these next few seconds will be life or death. She readies her ax, which burns her arm. Bastards.

“You don’t even believe in your commander,” Titania’s growl manages to stay level. “You don’t have to do this.”

The soldier makes a little  _ “Pah!” _ sound without even a head nod. The grip on his steel lance tightens and he pushes past the myrmidons to lead the charge. Great. He’s probably the harder one for her to down, but it’s gonna sap off the strength she needs for the two…

“Leanne, hold here,” a warm voice announces from above. 

Titania permits a crane of her neck and sees Ike carefully pull Leanne off his shoulders, pressing her into a musty branch extended towards the sky. He rests a hand against her chest and then leaps into the mud, sword already drawn. He rushes ahead and swats at the steel lance from below, knocking it high into the air. The soldier, too clumsy to regain his balance fast enough, crumples when Ike’s sword then goes for the neck.

The two myrmidons hesitate, but they too dive forward. Both swords strike at Ike, but the boy holds his own. He clashes with them, each  _ Clang! _ quickly punctuated by another. Until the following myrmidon is too slow to the draw, and Ike slips into that gap and strikes him through the heart. He pulls back and ducks a swing at his chest, then grabs the myrmidon by the arm, dragging him forward, impaling the enemy’s torso along his sword.

Ike holds his smile the whole time. Just like Greil would have if he… 

“Commander, I…” Titania starts.

Ike shoots a single finger into the air with a knowing look. A moment later, bark peels off the fallen trunk as Leanne’s heels dig into the musty tree. The heron girl falls off the tree and right into Ike’s readyhands. He smiles at her and then looks to Titania. “Titania, you don’t have to explain yourself, it’s fine. I asked you to train Astrid and Makalov. You did, and did it really well, I should add.”

Titania nods, hand subconsciously swatting at the piled on mud to wipe it off her armor. She frowns. “I did, but — that’s no excuse for — ”

Ike waves that off too. “You’re off season, it’s fine. I am officially unassigning you from your duties with them. I don’t want to make the same mistake I did with Soren… he’s done no field work since we left Crimea and there’s no way he can physically catch up with the rest of us now. But you — I mean, you’ll catch up in no time. It’s like — uh — riding a horse, which you — uh — do.”

Titania presses her lips together. “Ike…”

“Titania,” Ike furrows his brow. “Trust me, I get it. Personally, I feel kind of off too. It’s sort of… liberating — to not have to worry about combat because of Leanne right now. I peaked in Gallia when fighting that um… ”

Titania folds her arms together and though she’s not much of a singer, she hits the tune just right. “ _ Scallywags of the sea are we! We earn our gold with axes bold!” _

Ike snaps his fingers and points at Titania’s lips. “ _ Yes! _ The singing pirate. Surprisingly strong man too. But yeah, I haven’t felt particularly challenged lately.” Ike runs a hand through his hair, stumbling when Leanne falters in his one-armed hold. “But I think after we get Begnion’s support, things might escalate a bit.”

“Yes, there’s a lot of work to be done,” Titania nods. “Are you sure your decision is wise, Commander? If — if Greil saw such shoddy work from me, why — I think he’d send me to the kitchens with Oscar and Boyd.”

“Mhm,” Ike nods, mulling that one over. “I’m not sure. What I do know is that I’m uncomfortable being in this position — especially when I have to order you around. I’ve certainly made bad decisions as Commander, like when I botched our espionage mission in that fortress… Marcia has yet to let me live that down. But what I do know is this — if I commit to following my heart, at least the consequences will be consistent? And that is something I can learn to deal with.”

Titania considers that. A twinge of guilt at her temple. She shouldn’t be allowing the commander to talk about himself like this. It won’t be good for morale…

“Titania, return to where we began,” Ike says with some impatience. “Stefan and Devdan are coming as reinforcements. They are bringing a silver ax, a short ax, and I’ve heard a killer lance.”

Titania raises an eyebrow. “But neither of them can use axes — ” She stops herself when she remembers the weapons she brandished before she was ordered to step down and focus on training. “ — well met.”

Ike smiles. She wishes he smiled more. But she understands his general apprehensions. His general… everything. She knows so much about him, but in returns he knows little of her. If not nothing. That too feels bad. She owes him more — doesn’t she?

“Titania…” Ike’s voice gets small here. He looks at his boot kicking against the mud. Frowns. “I don’t understand. Why are you so scared? It’s just me. Surely you weren’t like this around my father.”

There it is. She brushes some of the long hair from her eyes and keeps her face still. She doesn’t want to talk about this right now, it’s still too raw. “Ike…”

“Do me a favor,” Ike grunts, looking past his shoulder while slinking back over the tree. “When you get your hands on the silver ax, move fast. I want to be the one to cut down Oliver where he stands, but because of circumstances…” He quickly glances over to Leanne’s head that slumps onto his shoulder. “...I’d like it if you could give him one for me.”

Titania nods. That — is doable. “Gladly.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you couldn't guess already, this is on hiatus but I've had this chapter on my computer for so long, I figured I might as well post it. Not expecting to work on this anytime soon though, sorry. : ( I love Tellius, but I've really been enjoying my time with all the Three Houses I've been doing. Check my profile to see some gnarly shit. <3 
> 
> I promise to finish this one day.


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